UN agency: Out of fuel, life-saving services in Gaza stopped

The United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said life-saving services in besieged Gaza have come to a halt because fuel is “almost completely exhausted”, after 17 days of violence.

This comes as Israel blocks aid of fuel, saying Hamas was stockpiling diesel.

Three UN schools where civilians are taking shelter sustained damage from nearby Israeli airstrikes.

UNRWA said one person sheltering at the UN schools was killed while 15 suffered minor injuries from the strikes.

Since the violence in Israel and Palestine broke out on Oct 7, 39 UNRWA staff were killed and 42 installations were been damaged.

The agency said about 629,000 internally displaced persons are sheltering in 150 UNRWA installations.

Shelling has damaged schools, a church, residential buildings, mosques, and hospitals.

UNRWA reports of the dire conditions come as UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres held a press conference to address what he said was misinterpretation as justifying the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct 7, which led to 1,400 deaths and more than 200 taken hostage.

This was after his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, where he said Israel’s ceaseless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, killing mostly civilians, is a violation of international humanitarian law.

Israel, calling for the UN secretary-general’s resignation, said it will refuse visas to all UN officials in response to Guterres’s speech.

In his speech, Guterres condemned both the Hamas attack and the Israeli bombardment, for disregarding civilian lives.

He also said, while unjustifiable, the Oct 7 attack “did not happen in a vacuum” and that the Palestinian people have endured decades of “suffocating occupation”.

Babies, journalists, doctors killed in shelling

According to the local Health Ministry, some 7,000 people have died in Gaza. The ministry published their names, Al Jazeera reported.

The Guardian reports that among those killed in Israeli strikes were doctors, journalists, poets, students, writers, pre-schoolers and babies.

Entire families have also been wiped out in the attacks, which reportedly killed hundreds daily, The Guardian reported.

Among those killed were Al Jazeera Arabic’s bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh’s wife, 15-year-old son Mahmoud, seven-year-old daughter Sham, and 18-month-old grandson Adam, who were sheltering at the Nuseirat refugee camp in Central Gaza.

They were displaced from Northern Gaza, following Israel’s warnings for civilians to move south to escape military attack.

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” Wael said.

Al Jazeera condemned the killings and Israel’s “indiscriminate attack”.

Israel said it was targeting Hamas combatants in that area.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a least 24 journalists have been killed in the violence in Israel and Palestine.

Aid trickling in

Meanwhile, aid is slowly trickling into Gaza via the Rafah border crossing which Palestine shares with Egypt.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it received 74 trucks of aid since the start of the conflict but fuel has not been allowed in.

Israel has cut off fuel, electricity, and most water to the territory since the latest round of violence began.

The UN said pre-conflict, it sent about 100 trucks of aid daily to Gaza, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since 2005.

Guterres described the amount of aid that is entering Gaza as a “drop in a sea of needs”.

After Hamas took over the strip in 2007, the blockade was said to be for the prevention of smuggling arms into Gaza.

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